


Rout

by fawatson



Category: Purposes of Love - Mary Renault
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/pseuds/fawatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vivian's musings about Jan's entourage of 'friends'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queen_ypolita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ypolita/gifts).



> **Prompt:** Here's a few ideas: post-book Vivian or Mic during the war; anything about Colonna and her bohemian life or whatever drove her to want to become a nurse; something about Jan (maybe something about all these people who fall for him); and, from the Yuletide letter: Looking at the optional details that I included in my sign-up, it seems they are all pre-book or post-book, and with this book I'm certainly interested in either filling in some backstory for the characters, or imagining possible futures for them, rather than anything that would fall within the time span covered by the book.
> 
>  **Author’s Notes:** (a) The phrase in **bold** is a quotation from Renault’s novel; (b) the novel Vivian is reading in the first flashback is _Anne of Green Gables_ by L.M. Montgomery (originally published in 1908; the phrase “race of Joseph” also comes from the Anne series, which was popular throughout the English-speaking world in the early part of the 20th C.; Montgomery grew up on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Even the wind stilled to honour him. It had been rather a horrible blustery day when they had arrived at the church for the service, as if the very heavens protested what they were there to do. The gusts had already lessened as the procession had left the church. Now, however, standing by the graveside, it was still – deathly still. Vivian gave a wry twisted smile at that thought. If nothing else would have put a stop to irreverent humour, one might have thought watching Jan’s coffin being lowered into a grave would. She looked round at the mourners as the minister droned on: her father, grey and small, on the other side of the hole; Mic, gaunt and haunted-looking, here beside her; Colonna, on her left, having come to support her friend; and Alan, returned somehow just in time for the funeral. Alan....

* * * * *

They were arguing again. Vivian tucked her feet up under her in the armchair and snuggled under the afghan as she tried hard to focus on her book. The first Anne book was an old favourite of hers – returned to time and again. She had just had finished having a lovely cry over Matthew’s death and was pleasantly anticipating Anne’s reconciliation with Gilbert; the ‘discussion’ taking place in the room below was spoiling her concentration. Not that their voices were very loud. Of course not; her father was far too well-bred to raise his voice. But her bedroom was just above the parlour and they must be sitting by the fireplace downstairs as the sound was travelling up the chimney. As always, her mother’s voice came through more distinctly. Theatrical training meant Mary Hallows could whisper yet still be heard.

“ _Why_ can’t he be sensible? That’s all I’m asking – why?” said Father.

“Why should he?” Mother replied.

Jan again – _always_ Jan. Vivian sighed. Her parents rarely said much to each other nowadays. Whatever attraction there had once been between them long gone, they had settled into a kind of non-marriage, with each going his separate way. Her mother’s acting took her to London more often than not, so she was really only around episodically, when ‘resting’, as actors called it. She would arrive bringing colour and excitement in her wake, stay for a few weeks, and disappear as suddenly as she arrived, leaving the house feeling rather dull, but normal again. They got _on_ during those visits. Well, _usually_ they got on. But not this time – and, as always, if they did argue, it was about their son. It was the only thing they never could agree about.

“It’s not as if I’m suggesting he do something completely against his nature.”

Her father’s voice came again – long-suffering and bewildered in tone.

“He needs to _find_ himself!” That was her mother. Her voice rang out in declaration.

“What does _that_ mean?” Her father again. “You do talk such a lot of rubbish, Mary. Have you any idea of the money his ‘finding himself’ is going to cost me?”

“It’s only money,” Mary Hallows replied. “This is his soul; and my son has the heart and mind of an artist!”

“Piffle! He’s reading science, not English!”

Vivian had been _so_ looking forward to Christmas break, when Jan would be home from university. Thora had come over constantly the first few weeks after he had gone, asking if he’d written, reminding herself when he would be back. She’d stayed late after a meal one evening and Father had insisted she stay the night, saying it wasn’t safe for her to walk home that late. She’d seemed pleased to be offered Jan’s room to sleep in; but **had appeared in Vivian’s room, weeping at three in the morning, and stayed till five** , talking endlessly about her passion for Jan and how he was cruel to leave her. Thora’s hysteria must have burnt out her endless passion as she’d not been over to visit since. From the advanced age of 16, Vivian knew it for puppy love.

It had been horribly lonely without Jan, though. The moors – her refuge against the prosaic – had been empty and grey. She had _so_ looked forward to his return, to long rambles with him and Jan’s insights into the flora and fauna round her.

“You’re not sitting here moping are you?” Jan’s voice broke into her reverie. “Listening to that lot downstairs arguing my career!”

Vivian looked up. He stood in her doorway, hair highlighted in a band of sunshine from the corridor window behind. It turned the soft light brown of his hair golden.

“Why did you change subjects, Jan?” she asked.

“Do you know,” he replied, “you’re the only one who’s asked me that.”

“You had a scholarship, Jan! _I’ll_ never get a scholarship.” In her voice was the bitter recognition that without a scholarship she would never go to university. Her father might pay for a son to go, but never a daughter. A scholarship would be her only chance; but study as she might, her marks just were not good enough. “I’ll be stuck here.”

“Could you really see me working in some gloomy hospital somewhere surrounded by dying people and horrible smells? Could you? Father may moan about it - he’d certainly never have agreed if I’d given him the decision - but faced with a fait accompli, he’ll cough up the fees...or Mother will.”

She nodded, understanding and accepting, as she always did, her brother’s decisions.

“Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

* * * * * 

“Thank God he’s gone – I thought he’d never leave.” Jan dropped into the chair beside her.

Vivian retorted, “Well you invited him!”

“Did I? Did I really invite him?”

“People normally don’t come to visit without an invitation.”

“They don’t? In that case I must have imagined Great Aunt Agatha’s visit last Easter.”

“You know full well _she_ has a standing invitation – not something your friend can claim.”

“Yes, but is Nigel a friend?” asked Jan plaintively. “Can one consider such a colossal bore a _friend_?”

“It wasn’t so much that he was a _bore_ , exactly,” Vivian opined, “it was more the way he opened every conversation by telling me just how like you I am. If he hadn’t been so clearly queer I might have mistaken him for being interested in _me_ , he saw so little of _you_. As it is though, you have gone up in Father’s estimation as _he_ thinks you brought Nigel home as a beau for me.

“He cannot have thought _that_ , surely?”

“I don’t think he’s quite realised what you’ve been up to at university,” came Vivian’s calm reply.

“No, he’s carefully never asked me anything since that first term when I left the medical faculty.”

“And you never tell him.”

“No...he’s not–”

“–one of the race of Joseph!” They finished the sentence jointly, with a theatrical flourish of their hands.

At the time she felt completely in sympathy with her brother. It was only after he left in Autumn for the start of Michaelmas Term that she remembered to feel a little guilty for mocking Father so.

* * * * *

The railway journey had been long and tiring. Father had insisted on checking into the small hotel where they would be staying this weekend, before they came over. Vivian had begged to come sooner; and he had relented. She had left him at the check-in with all the bags. She knew the way. They were staying at the same central Bed & Breakfast they’d stayed at last year and Jan was back in digs at the College for his final year. Vivian called at the porter’s lodge to check directions before eagerly rushing up the stairs to the large corner study-bedroom that had been allocated this year.

She stopped short of knocking. The door was open, but the doorway full of a very stylish and beautiful figure. Long dark hair was elaborately plaited round the crown of an elegant female head, not a wisp out of place. Vivian was instantly conscious of her own nondescript, and somewhat untidy, light brown locks.

“I’ll see you next week, then,” she heard the woman say, turning away from the room’s occupant (from her brother!), to face Vivian. A brilliant smile illuminated the stranger's face briefly as she realised Vivian was behind her. She turned her head briefly back at Jan. “Your sister?”

Jan’s head popped round the door, “Hello! Why hover there, you silly old thing?” Deftly he pulled her into his rooms, gently patted his previous visitor on the shoulder in a friendly goodbye, and closed the door. So smoothly was it done that Vivian did not realise until after she was seated by the fire, toast and tea in hand, that she had never been introduced.

“Who was that woman, Jan?”

“Her?” he said with seeming casualness, “just a friend. Here – have some jam with that, or would you prefer honey?”

“Don’t try to change the subject – who _is_ she?”

“Don’t be dull, dear. You sound rather like Father when you ask questions that way. In any case, _I_ thought the subject was tea and your visit.”

“I supposed she’s one of your Rout.”

“Rout?” Jan frowned at her. “ _Rout?_ Where did you get that from?”

“ _Comus_ – we took it in school this year.”

“Now you really _do_ sound like Father. I think I liked you better when you stuck to that Island woman’s stories.”

* * * * *

They’d had a wonderful day. First Jan had taken her to the Natural History Museum in Kensington. It had been his choice - not something she’d have chosen (Vivian had been once before on a school trip). But this time, the dusty exhibits had come alive with Jan’s well-informed commentary. Next tea at the Savoy; and then they had taken in a play at Wyndham’s Theatre on Charing Cross Road. They burst into the flat, quoting lines at one another, laughing, completely in harmony. Alan put aside his pile of papers, and made tea for them. The conversation first expanded to include him, as he asked about their day, then was dominated by him, as he and Jan bantered back and forth. Their wit was too quick for Vivian, and included a number of references to past events to which she had no knowledge. She didn’t mind, at first – just sat enjoying Jan’s company and the display of brilliance – until she looked across at Alan at one point and saw him glance at her out of cold, hostile eyes. She left the next afternoon. They saw her onto the train heading north. Alan had fixed her ham sandwiches to take; and Jan had nipped into the station shop and bought her a bottle of lemonade for the journey.

“Do you need me to get you a newspaper?” asked Jan.

Vivian dug into her bag and pulled out _Anne of the Island_.

“Re-reading old favourites, I see.”

“It’s good for a journey.”

“Well, have a good one,” said Alan. “We’ll be up North for Christmas.”

* * * * *

The minister had finished his few words over the grave; and with a gesture, family were invited to throw the first handfuls of earth on the coffin. A tear trickled down her father’s face as he bent to the earth piled by the side. Vivian went next, operating on autopilot as she followed convention. Mic took her grubby hand comfortingly into his as she stepped back from the grave. There was a slight uneasy pause before, collectively, the group began its retreat from the cold deep hole. Collectively...except.... Vivian stumbled slightly over a grassy hump as she looked back. The gravedigger stood back, patiently waiting, as Alan knelt at the grave’s edge, head bent, sifting earth back and forth between his fingers.


End file.
